Militant Islamist message boards on the Internet carried a
banner announcing the statement with Israel's anniversary as
the topic, said the monitoring service of the U.S. author and
analyst who goes by the name Laura Mansfield.

The speech is addressed to "Western peoples" and entitled
"The Causes of Conflict on the 60th Anniversary of the State of
Israeli Occupation," the SITE Institute monitoring group said.
The monitor IntelCenter said an audio-video statement was
expected to be released within 72 hours.

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"Bin Laden seems to be shifting gears," over the last
decade, Mansfield said. "In his initial messages, bin Laden's
focus was on the removal of U.S. forces from (Saudi Arabia) but
in recent years he has more closely wedded himself to the
Palestinian issue."

In a message on March 20, his second in 2008, bin Laden
urged Muslims to maintain the struggle against U.S. forces in
Iraq as a path toward "liberating Palestine."

Al Qaeda has vowed attacks on Jews both within and outside
Israel, and regularly expressed support for the Palestinians.
Al Qaeda was blamed for a suicide attack on an Israeli-owned
hotel in Kenya and a simultaneous failed attempt to shoot down
an Israeli charter jet near the Mombasa, Kenya, airport in
2002.

But despite calls by al Qaeda supporters for the militant
network to establish a presence in Palestinian areas, U.S.
intelligence officials see no evidence it has done so. Analysts
say al Qaeda faces competition for turf from the
well-established Hamas.

Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, criticized
Hamas in March 2007 as a servant of U.S. interests by agreeing
to respect past Palestinian accords with Israel.

He denounced Saudi Arabia and Egypt in December for serving
U.S. interests, as he accused Arab leaders of betraying
Palestinians by attending a Middle East peace conference in the
United States.

A new message from Zawahri was likely in the coming week
and was expected to pertain to Egypt, Mansfield said.